- Title: Pioneers in fight against poverty win 2019 Nobel economics prize
- Date: 14th October 2019
- Summary: VARIOUS OF NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS SVENSSON BEING INTERVIEWED SVENSSON'S HANDS (SOUNDBITE) (English) MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE PRIZE IN ECONOMIC SCIENCES, JAKOB SVENSSON, SAYING: "What they have done is to essentially construct, to come up with a new approach, and the simplest way to put it is that they have taken broad questions, such as why are kids not learning in school, and they break that down into many more detailed questions and then they try to answer those detailed questions with the best possible methods we have to say something about the causal effects, namely field experiments. And then they combine this evidence to say something about the underlying causes of poverty and policies to combat poverty." SVENSSON LISTENING (SOUNDBITE) (English) MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE PRIZE IN ECONOMIC SCIENCES, JAKOB SVENSSON, ON PRIZE GIVEN TO WOMAN, SAYING: "I think it's important. It's important to note that of course Esther doesn't get the prize because she's a woman. She gets the prize because she's an enormously successful researcher. But given that this is only the second time that a woman gets the prize in economics, I think it's hugely important and I'm very happy about it." SVENSSON BEING INTERVIEWED
- Embargoed: 28th October 2019 12:04
- Keywords: Nobel Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences Abhijit Banerjee Esther Duflo Michael Kremer Alfred Nobel
- Location: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
- City: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
- Country: Sweden
- Topics: Science
- Reuters ID: LVA007B12LOAV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: United States-based economists Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize on Monday (October 14) for their work in fighting poverty that has helped millions of children around the world.
French-American Duflo becomes only the second female economics winner in the prize's 50-year history, as well as the youngest at 46. She shared the award equally with Indian-born American Banerjee and Kremer, also of the United States.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work had shown how poverty could be addressed by breaking it down into smaller and more precise questions in areas such as education and healthcare, making problems easier to solve.
It said the results of their studies and field experiments had ranged from helping millions of Indian schoolchildren with remedial tutoring to encouraging governments around the world to increase funding for preventative medicine.
The 9 million Swedish crown (915,300 U.S. dollars) economics prize is a later addition to the five awards created in the will of industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, established by the Swedish central bank and first awarded in 1969.
Economics is the last of the awards to be announced with the winners for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace having been unveiled over the course of last week.
(Production: Bjorn Lockstrom, Ilze Filks, Parul Gupta, Louisa Naks) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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